Liberals claim public schools need more money. They are lying.

Average per-pupil spending in U.S. public schools rose 212 percent from 1960 to 1995 in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars.

In 1960, for every U.S. public school teacher there were approximately 26 students enrolled in the schools. In 1995, there were 17.7.

The average salary of U.S. public school teachers rose 45 percent in real dollars from 1960 to 1995.

In Florida, it takes six times as many people to administer a federal education dollar as a state dollar: 297 state employees are responsible for $1 billion in federal funds, while 374 employees oversee $7 billion in state funds.

In Arizona, 45 percent of the staff of the state education department are responsible for managing federal programs that account for 6 percent of the state's education spending.

After spending $118 billion since 1965 on Title I, the federal government's largest K-12 program, evaluations conclude that the "program has been unable to lift [the] academic level of poor students."

http://i2i.org/SuptDocs/OpEdArcv/Gorman/00Feb15.increased%20 school%20spending.htm

The Roman Catholic church has run schools in the poorest parts of American cities for over 100 years. In 1990, the RAND Corporation, hardly a statistically naïve or purposefully deceptive group, studied New York City high schools. It found that Catholic high schools drawing from the same neighborhoods as New York City’s "zoned" high schools produced higher graduation rates and better test scores at a cost of about $3,500 per student. The City’s cost was $6,700 per student.

In 1996-97, Washington, D.C., had the largest per-pupil expenditures and smallest teacher student ratios in the nation at $9,123 and 14 to 1 respectively. Despite this, 12% of D.C. public classrooms did not have textbooks at the beginning of the 1996-97 school year. When the city pumped $63 million into roof repairs in the early 1990s, the system spent only 7% of the money on roofs.

At an actual cost per student of only $2,700, Washington, D.C., Catholic schools provided books, a safe environment, and far better levels of academic achievement. The data also show that the most disadvantaged children benefit the most from Catholic school attendance.

Public schools in Washington, D.C. cost $8,920 per student in the 94-95 school year (among the highest in the U.S.) and ranked near the bottom on almost every level of performance. Upon entering the D.C. school system, students are shown to be average.

As of 1996, there were 88 private schools in the D.C. area that cost $4,000 per year or less.

46% of private school budgets go to teacher pay. If public schools paid teachers that same percentage, the average public school teacher's annual salary would jump from $38,509 to $54,421.

Over 50% of employees added to public school payrolls between 1959 and 1998 are not teachers.

A study done in 1999 compared the math scores of black public school and black Catholic school students in Washington, DC. They included the education of child's mother, the child's family status (one or two parents in the home), the availability of reading materials in the child's home, and the median income of the neighborhood in which the child lived. The study used data from 1996.

- The average black eighth-grade student who attends Catholic school has math scores better than 72% of comparable students in public schools.

- The effect of attending a Catholic school has a greater positive effect on mathematics achievement than the effect of reducing the student to teacher ration from 25:1 to 15:1.

- The effect of attending a Catholic school has a greater positive effect on mathematics achievement than the effect of a student's mother having some college education.

- The effect of attending a Catholic school has a greater positive effect on mathematics achievement than the effect of living in a two-parent family.

In Cleveland, 39.7% of public school teachers have sent or are sending at least one of their own children to private school. In Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the percentages are 44.6%, 36.3%, and 35.9% respectively. Nationally, 14.1% of all children attend private schools.

The NEA membership was the 4th highest contributor to federal candidates and parties in 95-96 election cycle. They contributed $3,283,141 (96% to Democrats, 4% to Republicans).

The AFT membership was the 16th highest contributor to federal candidates and parties in 95-96 election cycle. They contributed $2,423,088 (99% to Democrats, 1% to Republicans).

Marva Collins was a public school teacher in Chicago. She taught low income black students. The government had said that her students were "learning disabled" and "unteachable."

Collins disagreed. She knew that the kids could learn. She had some great ideas on how to teach them. But the government wouldn't let her do it.

So she started her own private school. The level of funding was very low. She took all these low income black kids whom the government had declared "learning disabled" and "unteachable." And with a very low level of funding, she taught them reading, math, science, history, philosophy, etc. On standardized tests, the kids scored well above the national average.

A year ago April, I visited a kindergarten class in the basement of a black church in Dayton, Ohio. None of the parents had ever been to college. Still, all 13 kids could read. (Two girls read me one of Aesop's fables, and explained -- correctly -- its meaning.) In addition, each of the kids could pick out any of the 50 states on a map, and they knew all the state capitals -- even though most had never been farther than Cincinnati.

[This next one is in my own words, based on various reports that I have come accross.]

The public school system in Kansas City, Missouri, was doing a terrible job of educating its students. So the people in charge decided that they needed to spend more money. The school district increased its spending so much that it was spending more money, per student, than any other major school district in the country. They gave big raises to all the teachers. They built new schools, and renovated old ones. They built libraries, gymnasiums, and swimming pools. They spent money on everything that the teachers unions and bureaucrats said was necessary to improve education. They spared no expense.

And more than a decade after all of these reforms were implemented, there was no improvement in student performance.

Liberals are always saying that we need to spend more money to fix the public schools. The next time a liberal tells you that the public schools need more money, all you have to do is show them this information. I have showed this information to many liberals, and their typical response is silence. They simlpy cannot deal with the facts of reality.

According to liberals, all you have to do to increase student achievement is pay the teachers more money, without increasing standards.

And all you have to do to increase airport security is to Federalize the screeners and pay them double their previous wage, without increasing job standards.

In one of his few moments of clarity, Jessie Ventura got it absolutely right when he said public education is a black hole. There will never be enough money to fill it to where the NEA (DNC) would be satisfied. Teachers in SD complain constantly that we under-fund education. Schools are forced here to watch every single penny. We are something like 48th in per student spending. Yet we consistently finish in the top 10 for test scores and grad rate. And, we have the lowest state and local taxes in the union.

The funding "problem" is the result of the union mantra of "less work, more pay" which translates to smaller class sizes, fewer actual days teaching and more teachers. Note that the average pupil/teacher ratio has dropped from 26 to 17. Class size is not a factor in quality of education. My 6th grade class (1965) had 45 kids, yet we were far better educated than the average child today.

Funny how home-schoolers can teach twice as much in half the time at a fraction of the cost and produce a far superior product.

Funny how vouchers and tax credits to grant "a parent's fundamental right to choose" their children's school, they pick a parochial or private school and they produce superior students every time at a lower cost.

I think the liberal public schools need more money like Congressmen, pro athletes and corporations need farm subsidies. More money keeps them voting to keep in power those who in turn keep them in power. That is, "the power to indoctrinate, not educate", after all they have new up and coming liberals to produce by way of brainwashing thir students of all redeeming intellectual and moral value.

The more we spend the worse they get.

Cut the payment for failures. Increase the payment for successes.

Start cutting the money that goes from the teachers' unions to the democrat party by illegal contributions from the National Education Association.

FROM: a former high school teacher

Public schools have way too much money that they are spending wrongly now, we should give them even more? They have forgotten their mission, which is to fill young skulls full of mush, and have substituted widespread social experimentation. Well, the experimentation has gone on for some forty years now, with no visible benefit. Most of our sharpest youngsters have been educated either by home schooling or in private academies, where the basics are drilled in first, and on this foundation, additional learning is built up in logical sequence. Does anybody remember "the new math" of a few years back? The whole concept had to be unlearned before the pupil could comprehend what simple addition or subtraction involved, let alone higher mathematical principles. Or the "sight-reading" methods, which practically guaranteed dyslexia. "Squirrel" and "Special" look almost identical to a sight-reader. Just a few examples, I don't even go into the misinformation being spewed forth in the sciences and history and literature.

Of course they are wasting money. And it's easy to show them up as the wastrels they are.
I used the following on a Superintendant of Schools on a talk radio program.

The state of Missouri spends more than $6,000/student/year.
Therefore: for a typical class of twenty students that is $120,000.
You pay on average $35,000/teacher.
What happened to the other $85,000?

He was speechless and mumbled something about getting back to me on that.

You've hit upon the source for the ruined budgets. Budget increases are inevitably met by more regulation, NEA intervention, and lobbyist hand-outs. My former school had an increase of 400+ students over my 4 years there, and yet had two fewer teachers when I left... the 9 newly added positions were nearly all state- and federally-mandated 'specialists', virtually all psychology and behavioral 'experts'. The classroom staff was reduced to make room. (My average class size went from 21 originally to 32 in the last year, although that year's class was unusually large.)

As many have pointed out here, spending increases are virtually useless and would do little to improve classrooms in any region. (Heck, parts of the third world keeps pace with many American classrooms without electricity, equipment, or textbooks.) While I'd love to have a pay increase or nicer equipment, it would do little to improve my students' performance or comprehension. If you want real improvements in public education, try removing the 'compulsory' nature of the beast (10th plank of the Communist Manifesto), de-fanging the NEA dragon and introducing competition into the pay scale, and reversing the media/urban trend towards popular disrespect for academic accomplishment, re-introducing strong parental support for teachers' discipline of students, closing the federal Dept of Education, and eliminating social promotion... for starters. (Man, we have strayed far, far away from a viable system!)

I had some very good teachers in high school, but the several I have known since have collectively been as smart as a sack of hammers. I know 3 young 'uns at the moment going to school to become teachers, and while they are pleasant socially, they don't strike me as people who would be able to impart any knowledge...although they'd be capable of spewing the NEA party line. My landlord is a teacher at a Montessori school, and is about to quit after 17 years.

I've collected pottery and mission-style stuff for years, and know that 60-70 years ago, schools actually taught children skills they could use to make a living. The NEA would sincerely love everyone to believe that a college education is necessary in today's world. I beg to differ. Thirty years ago, a college education meant something. Now, the education establishment has 'created' programs in all kinds of crap that used to be considered hobbies. They want to take $30,000 and hand out degrees in areas of 'expertise' that won't get a person a job for $10 an hour.

Different kids have different assets...if we had more choices as far as choosing a vocation in high school, that would be a good use of education dollars.

Oh, and to answer your question, he could have said that you need to add in salaries for bus drivers, maintenance staff, administration, nursing staff, cafeteria staff, janitorial staff, mandated psychologists, special ed. consultants, security staff (for some larger schools), computer consultants (a full-time position in almost every medium-sized school in the country)... then there's repairs, copier paper and maintenance contracts, classroom supplies, office supplies, medical supplies, maintenance supplies, 50 newspaper subscriptions for 2 current events classrooms, sports equipment and uniforms, food and replacing eating utensils (lost, stolen, bent, etc), computer connection costs, electricity, telephone lines, bus maintenence (and purchases), lost revenue due to destroyed property and families failing/refusing to pay fees (which easily exceeded $75,000 for my school last year)... and finally there's every new expense added every time some pol decides that they want to look like they 'care' about education and impose some new mandate, rule, program, or diversity/fisting/activism workshop (costing many thousands of dollars for a one-hour symposium).

(But you can add lunch money, book-and-paper fees, fund-raisers, and community grants as some extra sources of income.)

(I looked into possibly starting a small community school, and quickly learned that the credits don't pile up nearly as quickly as the debits... but it was a nice thought.)

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